Guests were treated to music by the Siong Leng Musical
Association, their first-ever performance in the United
States. Then they followed a traditional Tang Dynasty
procession from cocktails into dinner where the
five-course meal followed the itinerary of the sunken
ship: a first course from northern China, followed by
Vietnamese rolls, the entrée from India, and special
Middle Eastern desserts. Betsy Z. Cohen and Asia
Society VP Tom Nagorski were among the welcoming
speakers. Dinner guests then moved downstairs to dancing
with the younger committee and Persian desserts in the
Garden Court.
Betsy and Ed Cohen, Judith-Ann Corrente and Willem
Kooyker were the evening’s vice chairs, Carolyn
Hsu-Balcer and René Balcer were the
evening’s benefactors; friends of the evening included
the Arnhold Foundation, J. Frank and Susan Brown,
Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz, Charlotte Feng Ford,
Susan E. Lynch, Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon
Polsky, Alexandra Munroe and Robert Rosenkranz,
Barbara and Donald Tober, and Lulu and Anthony Wang;
guests also included Ann Ziff, HRH Princess Jeet
Nabha Khemka, Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia, ABT’s Hee
Seo, actress Phylicia Rashad, Susan Gutfreund,
Timothy Fok, and Nancy Moonves.
Founded in 1956 by John D. Rockefeller 3rd, Asia Society
is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational institution
headquartered in New York with state-of-the-art cultural
centers and gallery spaces in Hong Kong and Houston, and
offices in Los Angeles, Manila, Mumbai, San Francisco,
Seoul, Shanghai, Sydney, Washington, D.C., and Zurich.